Without a retail banking presence in the Americas, Mizuho is relatively unknown in this market. And compared to the other leaders on Wall Street, we're a new player looking to establish ourselves in a competitive industry.
So when it came to launching our brand on Twitter, we set out to do the following:
Our first step in defining our strategy was to identify the audience we wanted to engage on the channel. Upon analysis, we found an active institutional investor community on Twitter, using the platform to track trends to help make informed investment decisions.
To set ourselves apart from our competitors on this channel, @MizuhoAmericas became a way for us to engage directly with institutional investors in real-time, publishing content from our equity research team and other thought leaders at the company. What's unique about our team structure is that the social team works in lock-step with the content and digital teams. This allows the social team to be nimble and quickly capitalize on relevant conversation spikes. When there's an opportunity to enter a conversation, but we need long-form content, we're able to get that content up on our website quickly and tweeted out, giving us a competitive edge over our peers and an advantage to our audience.
Our channel is active before and during US market hours, sharing content that institutional investors can use to make smart decisions in real-time. Using data from social listening, we determine the right moment to enter conversations about trends or specific companies with content from our analysts. We're always conscious to tap into conversations we know our audience is following – using cashtags and other trending hashtags that we know they're watching closely.
From an aesthetic standpoint, our content maintains a consistent look and feel across all of our digital channels, but we've developed a specific look for Twitter to maximize engagement on the platform. Our visuals allow us to offer our audience a quick piece of information that's easy to digest on-the-go. This specialized look for Twitter allows us to stand out in feed from competitors or other accounts our followers might see, so as soon as our content shows up in feed, they are able to identify it from the rest and know it's something that they should pay attention to.
In addition to sharing the advice from our experts, we're available to field questions and help our audience navigate the complex financial system in which Mizuho not only operates, but also dominates globally. It's this global perspective that allows us to have a sharper sightline on both micro and macro trends, allowing us to instil confidence in our core audience on this channel.
The @MizuhoAmericas channel has become a resource for institutional investors – and also financial media. We've even connected directly with an investor on the platform, who expressed interest in opening up a multi-million dollar account with the bank.
Since launching our strategy, we've grown our following by more than 700%.
At time of publishing, we're seeing an average engagement rate on our content over 4.5%, showing that our content is not only generating interest, but it is generating interest with the right audience.
